


In Pictures

by pickleplum



Category: Pacific Rim (2013)
Genre: Found Family, Gen, POV Outsider, Post-Canon, Prompt Fic, Prompt Fill
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-11-11
Updated: 2013-11-11
Packaged: 2018-01-01 05:22:18
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,221
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1040835
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/pickleplum/pseuds/pickleplum
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Lars Gottlieb is a man under siege. Not only must he duck reporters asking for his opinion about the “failure” of the Wall of Life in the aftermath of the closure of the Breach, he cannot escape the faces of the Jaeger program staring at him from television sets, magazine covers, and newspaper front pages. Their names echo around him as he moves through the city. </p><p>Pentecost. Hansen. Choi. Becket. Mori. Geiszler. Gottlieb.</p>
            </blockquote>





	In Pictures

Lars Gottlieb is a man under siege. Not only must he duck reporters asking for his opinion about the “failure” of the Wall of Life in the aftermath of the closure of the Breach, he cannot escape the faces of the Jaeger program staring at him from television sets, magazine covers, and newspaper front pages. Their names echo around him as he moves through the city. 

Pentecost. Hansen. Choi. Becket. Mori. Geiszler. Gottlieb. 

The last never fails to sting his ears. His son. His Hermann. The young man he cut out of his life a decade before when the boy refused to join him on the Wall of Life program. He knows most fathers would be proud of a son who played a leading role in ending the war against the kaiju, but Lars Gottlieb has not reached his station in life by admiring the accomplishments of others. Building upon their work, yes, but never admitting that others’ plans were superior. He certainly won’t change that habit for his son, especially not while he remains confident that the Wall would have succeeded in its own way had it been completed.

The first evening after the closure, as he walks to his flat, the names of the “heroes of the Breach” issue from every tongue, screen, and speaker. When he stops for coffee, he is treated to the rough accent and raw-throated voice of the Australian, Hansen, speaking at some sort of press conference in Hong Kong blaring from a television behind the counter. He ignores the man’s words and notes the solemn expressions on the faces of those surrounding him, Becket and Mori to his left, Choi, Geiszler, and Hermann to his right. He collects his paper cup and pastry and watches the group shuffle from the speaking platform. He observes the familiar way that Geiszler steadies his son with a hand on his elbow as they descend the steps. Gottlieb sniffs, then slips out a side exit as he spies a young woman with a digital voice recorder enter the shop.

The next morning, his news feeder is clogged with photos of Becket and Mori’s return to Hong Kong and copies of an image of Hermann and Geiszler flanking Hansen in Hong Kong LOCCENT during the Jaegers’ final assault on the Breach. The three clutch the same communications microphone and stare intently at something out of frame. He purges the feed after skimming only a few of the items.

That afternoon a brief video of Hansen’s initial announcement to his Shatterdome staff of the Breach closure makes the rounds. The quality is poor, but Gottlieb marks Hermann leaning heavily on Choi in the background, both men looking exhausted and relieved as the room bursts into cheers and applause.

On his first day back at his office the front page of one of the glossy magazines on the table in the institute’s reception area is adorned with a full color photograph of Choi, Geiszler, and Hermann. Hermann sits between the other two while they stand resting companionable hands on his shoulders. Someone had seen fit to obtain a decent suit and tie in PPDC blue for Hermann to wear instead of his usual frayed blazer. Choi and Geiszler are ridiculous in appearance as usual; bowtie, pompadour, tattoos, and skinny jeans. The headline below them reads “The Brains Behind the Brawn”. Gottlieb tosses the rag into the wastebin.

A moment later Gottlieb is struck by a thought and retrieves the magazine. Examining the photo more closely, he recognizes the red-ringed irises of neural overload in both Geiszler and Hermann's left eyes. What had his son done? He folds the item in half, cover on the inside, tucks it under his arm, and retreats into his office.

During his midday meal, the air in the building’s cafeteria is filled with the voices of Mori and Hermann answering questions at a press conference discussing the design and restoration of Jaegers, especially _Gipsy Danger_ , which played a pivotal role in what they term “Operation Pitfall”. Mori is more articulate than Gottlieb expected for such a young woman and a pilot, at that. When she credits Hermann with helping upgrade the Jaeger’s programming, he lowers his eyes and stammers in an effort to redirect the praise. Mori smiles at him fondly. 

In the evening, Gottlieb finds several of his colleagues crowded around a computer screen watching a video of Geiszler speaking about his research recorded a year earlier. Apparently kaiju biology is more interesting to them now than it was when the beasts were an active threat. The twitchy scientist gestures expansively in front of what must be containment tanks full of kaiju organs while babbling rapidly about hemocyanin and Kaiju Blue neutralization. Gottlieb recognizes Hermann’s scrawling handwriting covering a wall behind the man. The funding cuts to the Jaeger program must have forced the two of them to share space. Gottlieb shudders at the thought of having to work alongside someone like Geiszler. Then he remembers that his son _Drifted_ with the man and feels his stomach lurch. Geiszler’s is not a mind he would enter willingly, but for some reason his son did.

Back in his flat with a nightcap in hand, Gottlieb finds an email from a colleague with a link to a summary of a lecture Geiszler and Hermann gave at a Hong Kong university. It seems that the two of them spent as much time interrupting and arguing with each other as explaining the science behind the Breach and its closure. The accompanying photo shows them with their mouths open in shouts and faces inches apart, Geiszler’s fists clenched at his sides and Hermann’s fingers tight around the handle of his cane. Gottlieb gives small laugh despite himself.

He visits the institutional library at mid-morning in hopes of avoiding the incessant news coverage of the remains of the Jaeger program. He is sorely disappointed, then, to catch sight of a special issue of an engineering journal focusing on the creation, restoration, and designs for future Jaegers with a cover photo of Mori, Choi, and Hermann. Mori stands slightly in front of the men, arms akimbo, wearing a technicians' jumpsuit. Choi and Hermann regard her with obvious pride.

Gottlieb watches from the gallery as Hansen, Becket, and Hermann explain what happened during “Operation Pitfall” to the UN General Assembly. The men look tired, but answer the questions put to them clearly and concisely. The delegates seem pleased with their accounts and thank them warmly for their time. After the session ends, Hansen leans over as they stand and says something to Hermann before the two men embrace. Becket shakes Hermann’s hand before offering a hug of his own.

Gottlieb reaches a breaking point the awful day when he is called speak before the General Assembly about the “failure” of the Wall. As he leaves his office to prepare he discovers his administrative assistant staring rapturously at her computer screen. The monitor is filled with a grid of photographs of the Jaeger program “heroes”. 

Pentecost. Hansen. Choi. Becket. Mori. Geiszler. Gottlieb. 

“You have use of that machine for official tasks, Miss Schäfer, not for personal excursions into the tabloids.”

“Oh! I’m very sorry, sir. I won’t happen again.”

“See that it doesn’t.”

He strides out, bracing himself for the gauntlet he must run.

**Author's Note:**

> Written for [the prompt](http://pacificrimkink.livejournal.com/1613.html?thread=2780749#t2780749):  
> "Hermann's mother died when he was young, and when a 20 year old Hermann went against his father in their strategies against the Kaiju, with his father backing the Wall of Life as pigheadedly as Hermann stuck with the PPDC, he was essentially disowned. Door closed, don't come back until you change your mind. Or, like, ever. And a decade later, Dr Lars Gottlieb watches his son speak at a press conference after the closed the Breach, the way he always said the world could. And in the media storm that follows, he sees Hermann again and again with that other doctor fellow, yes, but always smiling and leaning against those two rangers, and that older man, and the guy with the dorky poofy hair. He watches Hermann find his own, better family."
> 
> I don't know why, but I like writing stories about Lars Gottlieb and what an asshole I imagine him to be.
> 
> Music to set the mood: [Hüsker Dü, _The Living End_ , Track 7, "Friend, You've Got to Fall"](http://youtu.be/8dic5nuGu-o)


End file.
